MUSIC JUSTICE /

money

Restoration – The Lifeblood of Human Recovery

by

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Restoration – The Lifeblood of  Human Recovery

By Errol Michael Henry

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator align=”align-left” margin=”25″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1498749271733{border-top-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 3% !important;border-top-color: #646464 !important;border-top-style: dotted !important;border-radius: 1px !important;}”]

RESTORATION

noun:

The act of renewal, revival or re-establishment

The return of something to a former owner under legal restraint[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator align=”align-left” margin=”20″][vc_column_text]Hope springs eternal. Hope and expectation provide food for the soul. The prospect of gains (however they are defined) inspire people to go the extra mile, dig a little deeper and believe even more in the possibilities that hope affords. Losses occur when hope is dashed. People lose confidence in the power of ‘more’ and the prospect of attainment moves ever further away. The loss of valuable assets effects humans on multiple levels and the music industry has always been adept at taking away precious assets from creative people. The bottom line is that ‘treasure’ is an extremely personal concept and means different things to different people, but anyone who has lost what they deemed to be ‘treasure’ – is going to mourn until it is recovered.

Losses only hurt if we care about what was lost. If you get word that an adversary is no more, I doubt that you’d be too disappointed, but the loss of a valued friend or a relationship you held dear would most likely cause measurable discomfort. Losses are unpleasant, but give rise to a feeling that is hard to properly explain. Restoration essay writer makes that which was lost ‘taste’ even better once it has been recovered. We (human beings) don’t necessarily set out to be perpetually ungrateful, but the phrase: “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” should be partnered by “but you’ll appreciate it much more – if you ever get it back.” Restoration is certainly a welcome balm, but always remember that prevention is better than the cure.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator height=”25″][vc_column_text]

The prospect of career advancement is an attractive enticement but often leads to enslavement.

I guard the well-being of my intellectual assets like a hawk and value them greatly. Do I appreciate them more now than I used to – most definitely. I have learned (through bitter experience) that music is more than mere data. It is more than a product simply to be traded for cash. I did deals that required me to surrender ownership of my music. I was prepared to let my creations go because I sincerely believed that others were better placed to take them to a level beyond my reach. I later discovered to my great costs that all I had actually done was leave myself open to be abused, cheated and let down by dishonourable people.

I signed over ownership of my most valued assets in the false belief that I was doing what was best for the compositions themselves. I doubt that I will be the last person to discover that trusting vast corporations to take proper care of creative resources represents an expensive mistake. I want to forewarn as many people as possible of the risks involved in dealing with major music companies because I found out too late how little regard many of them have for written contracts and just how readily they are prepared to breach them. Once it became clear that my decision to entrust my recordings to these companies was a grave error – I had only one objective in mind – I had to get my music back.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row bg_color=”#f4f4f4″][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1499706045028{margin-top: -10% !important;margin-bottom: -10% !important;padding-top: 6% !important;padding-right: 4% !important;padding-bottom: 6% !important;padding-left: 4% !important;}”][vc_column_text]Do you have something to share?[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator subtitle=”“We’d love to publish your story“” align=”align-left” margin=”0″ css_animation=”simple”][vc_column_text]Contact Us Today to let us know about any experiences you feel would prove helpful to our readers or if you feel that we might be able to assist you in some way.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

It hasn’t been easy but there have been some notable successes in the fight against ‘the big boys’.

I felt that I had no choice but to fight behemoths like Atlantic Records, Universal Music and Warner-Chappell Music for the return of what rightfully belonged to me and after much stalling, evading, bullying, threatening and denying any wrong-doing, they all eventually returned my property. The return of resources once considered lost, is a wonderful feeling. The return of assets that were previously held captive represents a new beginning and a meaningful opportunity to try again. Restoration is an amazing thing and I am fully committed to helping as many people as I can to experience the sheer joy of getting back property or freedoms they perhaps believed were lost forever.

Global conglomerates are highly skilled in separating musicians from their rights with promises of investment, promotion and international sales, but even after these promises prove false, they remain determined to keep the resultant recordings forever. Many people don’t realise that hanging on to other people’s creative assets represents a fundamental policy designed to secure the long-term survival of some of the biggest and best-known companies on the planet. Many of these massive companies literally have no idea what music assets they have acquired over the years and even less idea about the artists who created them, but flatly refuse to set those people free. For some, keeping people or their musical output tied up isn’t really about commerce – it’s simply about greed and power. Restoring music copyrights to their rightful owners would enable those artists to gain greater economic strength whilst weakening avaricious, unreasonable corporations, so I am very motivated to aide creative people in this regard.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator height=”25″][vc_column_text]

Anyone who has ever benefited from it knows precisely why restoration is so important.

Music moves listeners in a variety of ways. Some delight in the soulful offerings of Marvin Gaye, while others prefer what the Rolling Stones have to offer. Music has the power to stir thoughts of love, rage or nostalgia, yet the general public have no idea how much some artists went through to create the music that generates those memorable experiences. There are musicians sitting somewhere right now being ‘tortured’ by the sound of their own performances. They were never recognised, rewarded or given the opportunity to profit from their own creations, so every time someone mentions how much the love that particular piece of music, the knife twists again in an already wounded heart. Music companies would cease to exist without a constant supply of creative output, yet too many of them treat musicians with complete contempt. If a company has no desire to promote or commercially utilise someone’s music – they should just give it back to them and let them get on with their lives.

Money is only one aspect of restoration. The return of people’s self respect would also help them become better citizens within the global music community. The recovery of my own copyrights had a profoundly positive effect on me and inspired me to take practical measures to enable others to see their freedom, assets and hopes restored too. Music Justice is fully committed to aiding those who want to escape the cycle of mistreatment that has for too long been an accepted facet of the entertainment industry. We are encouraging people to share their experiences – for the good of others who have yet to discover what the music business is really like under the surface. If more artists speak-up about the abuses they have suffered, the losses they have endured, the detrimental compromises they agreed to or the deals they should never have done, they could help to prevent the same damaging things from happening to the next generation.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator height=”25″][vc_column_text]

Restoration empowers people to rebuild their lives and to recover their self respect.

Having seen it first-hand I can attest that there is something incredibly empowering about restoration. Confidence returns. Inspiration returns. Hope is reborn and passion once dimmed, rushes back like a flood. I have lost some recordings – and I have received some back again. I have given this matter a great deal of thought and there isn’t a single deal that resulted in the loss of my music that I’d ever do again given the opportunity to remedy my former mistakes. I definitely made some poor choices and paid dearly for them, but I have no regrets about my decision to fight for the return of my music. It was very important for me on a personal level to stand my ground and to let the companies know that I would never back down and would persist in hounding them – until they returned my property to me. Getting my music back gave me the practical means to put my badly broken life back together – one song at a time and provided demonstrable evidence with which I could encourage others to fight for their rights too.

Music Justice wants to ensure that artists and musicians are properly represented, protected and empowered to manage their careers as they see fit – free from manipulation, abuse or theft. If you believe that our experience and expertise in recovering rights and negotiating advantageous settlements might be of interest to you, Contact Us Today. “Let us fight for you.” – Errol Michael Henry[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row bg_color=”#f2f2f8″][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1504458064022{margin-bottom: -4% !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-right: 4px !important;padding-left: 4% !important;}”][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_new_posts_grid style=”masonry” no=”3″ loop=”size:3|order_by:date|order:ASC”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Recompense – Healing For The Human Heart

by

Recompense – Healing for The Human Heart

By Errol Michael Henry


RECOMPENSE

verb:

To repay, remunerate or reward services rendered

Compensation given or restitution paid for loss or harm suffered

The music industry has a terrible and long-standing history of fiscal abuse. Stories of people working hard, generating millions of pounds, but getting nothing back in return are quite commonplace. There are many documented cases where artists have been tied to deals that are totally one-sided, yet few of the corporations who profit handsomely from these unjust agreements are ever made to pay proper compensation for their crimes. I know of instances where even after companies admitted serious wrongdoing, they went to great lengths to ensure that they did not compensate the victims of their malicious and clearly proven intent. The culture of systemic abuse continues unabated because the larger (and by extension) wealthier companies have the seemingly endless resources to keep legal cases going until the other party runs out of patience, strength or money.

Recompense will help the broken hearted to heal.

The other common reason is even more disturbing. Many of the creative people I have met during the course of my extensive career are uneducated about their rights or entitlements in regard to contracts, breaches or potential compensatory remedies when their deals go bad. The often incestuous relationship between the lawyers hired to defend the rights of their clients and the companies they also (often secretly) represent is a bigger issue that people perhaps realise and creative people need to become better informed about the overlapping connections shared between them, their legal representatives and the music business overall.

I’ve seen many a casual shrug of the shoulder after asking people why no compensation was sought when it became clear that they had been hard-done-by and whilst it’s easy to criticise people for giving up, the truth is rather more complex than that. If someone is still reeling from the reality that their expected ‘success’ will not materialise or that the music news essays they worked so hard to produce is ‘locked-up’ – mounting a challenge to extract compensation represents a bridge too far. I am currently fighting both Warner-Chappell Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing for compensation due their lack of respect for legal contracts. Details of how those cases are progressing will be published on the Music Justice website in due course.

Robbery is so wrong and victims of it can be badly affected for a very long time.

Theft (however you choose to define it) is endemic within the music industry. Some artists wrongly claim shares to songs they didn’t write. Some companies claim to own publishing or recording rights that legally belong to others. Some performers have made significant contributions to a creative process that generated millions yet saw nothing in terms of reasonable fiscal reward for their work. I personally know of some truly gifted performers who have not sung or played a note since it became clear that were never going to receive their rightful dues for work they delivered. I also know of other equally capable musicians and singers who are working ever harder for unjust pay due to the actions of ruthless corporations. Stories of sexual, monetary, physical and emotional abuse are common within the music business, yet those who practice these heinous crimes seem to escape unpunished. By raising public awareness about the evil that goes on behind the scenes, we can stop the abuses and facilitate punitive compensation for the victims of the illegal practices inflicted on them by global recording and publishing conglomerates.

Recompense would serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, fiscal compensation would go some way to remedying the wrongs that occur on a daily basis in what is a multi-billion dollar industry (which remains largely unregulated). On the other hand, punitive fiscal compensation that exceeds the revenue that might legitimately have been earned would quickly persuade perpetrators of unfair practices to amend their ways. In one recent (and highly publicised) case, the damages paid to those who had fallen foul of blatant theft, was nearly 3 times the actual revenue generated and the parties penalised have felt the effect where it hurts them most: in their wallets. Fiscal restitution is a beloved cousin of restoration – a subject comprehensively covered elsewhere on this website. Money doesn’t solve everything but it does help people to get back on their feet and provides much needed capital for those who have been bereft of it for too long.

During a meeting with Ahmet Ertegun (founder of Atlantic Records) in 1999, Ahmet admitted to me that he was uncomfortable with some of the deals he had concluded during Atlantic’s early years. He also told me that his discomfort with the unfair, one-sided nature of some of those agreements was a significant factor in him donating substantial sums of money to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, a charity set-up to provide aid to musicians from the 40’s -70’s. A number of artists previously signed to famous labels like Motown and Chess Records are recipients of hand-outs from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.

Whilst I have no desire to belittle the efforts being made in this regard, if the music business instituted effective punitive sanctions against the original labels or their current owners who mistreated their artists, there would be no need for the victims of unfairly constructed agreements to be reliant upon charitable gestures from people who may have significantly profited from those dubious contracts. Substantial compensation would generate far more revenue than charitable giving ever could and would put those legendary music veterans fully in charge of their own financial destiny. Music Justice is actively seeking to represent artists (or their legally entitled descendants) who were subject to highly questionable agreements – particularly those concluded back in the day.

We can’t turn back time, but the music industry needs to turn the tide.

I keep hearing that there is no time machine in which people can travel back to change what took place in previous eras, but that somewhat misses the point. The culture of theft and abuse that has been woven into the fabric of the music business since its very inception won’t change until the penalties for stealing exceed the hoped for profits. The recordings created or acquired by companies who deployed abusive, manipulative measures, are still being commercially exploited today. One merger gave rise to another. Executives received incredible bonuses for selling other people’s property, yet the root of how these recordings or compositions ever came into being has never been properly investigated before now – Music Justice aims to put that right. If the vast corporations who acquired music catalogues that were produced under legal duress were forced to compensate victims, they would quickly learn to be more circumspect about what they bought – and from whom.

There are ‘gatekeepers’ who make sizable sums of money from ‘selling’ young and vulnerable people to major record labels. This startling example of modern slavery will not stop until the odious ‘facilitators’ are fiscally punished for their wicked actions. Music Justice is currently implementing plans to materially damage the ‘enablers’ who are always around when the money is initially being handed out, but are nowhere to be seen when people’s dreams, lives and careers lay in tatters later down the line. Money alone won’t solve all of the issues surrounding the music business, but since deceitful riches represents the single biggest ‘driver’ motivating people to treat other human beings as ‘commodities’ – taking away their money by way of recompense for their victims is the most effective way to ensure a permanent change of current practices.

Sadly, many large music corporations share the belief that performers are merely expendable and readily replaceable ‘content providers.’

Some artist receive payments from streaming platforms that are so miniscule, that even after their product has been ‘consumed’ millions of times, they receive barely enough money to buy a decent cup of coffee. I talk to creative people everyday who see that their music is being propagated all over the world by globally recognised companies, yet despite the ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and other digital affirmations that arrive everyday, the fiscal rewards that ought to follow their apparent success, simply never arrive.

Huge web giants like Google, generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year from selling advertising on the back of what they know to be pirated music, yet are not currently required by law to pay proper rate of remuneration to the hardworking artists who created the compositions that consumers are listening to. Music Justice will lead the fight to secure equitable payments for genuine copyright owners.

The time has come for the victims of robbery, abuse and manipulation to be properly compensated.

The purpose of Music Justice is to represent people who have been wronged and to help them gain the compensation they deserve. If you believe that you may be due compensation due to copyright abuses, breaches of contract or other actions that were legally detrimental to your well-being, Contact Us Today to see how we might be able to help you. Always remember: “We will fight for you.” – Errol Michael Henry